Woman to Pay RIAA $220,000 For 24 Downloaded Songs

[disgruntledgamer]

At least they're quality songs...right?

It sucks, but we all know what can happen when we take this risk.

LMAO No it isn't, it depends on where you live and I'm not just talking outside the US, it varies from state to state.

It's a crime we've all been guilty of at one point in time and it's not like it's going to stop. Why the RIAA are picking on this woman who isn't even rich and who probably couldn't pay it anyway is beyond me.

Even if they did scare a few people into not file sharing any halfwit can download a Youtube recorder and make his own MP 3s that sound as good as any itunes or file sharing MP 3 that's free of viruses and impossible to trace.

 

[Mr F.]

Cost of pirating 22 songs: 136,708 pounds

Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong.

Take from that what you will. I was going to do a complex analyses pointing out just how unjust that fine is, comparing war reparations and other such lovely things. But I have better things to do then spend a while staring at a calculator.

Anyone can see that that fine is way in excess of the amount you should be fined for stealing a few songs. It does not matter if you hate piracy, it does not matter if you think she is a criminal or not for her actions.

That is about 6,000 pounds per song. Rounding down for ease.

Meh, I guess I will do some fancy maths.

Or not so fancy.

One and a half songs is equal to one year of university tuition. So 4.5 songs is equal to my bachelors degree. Consider 3.5 a year in maintenance and my entire university education is worth the same, to the RIAA, as 7 songs.

Or, if that is too complex for you to understand, according to the Aston Martin Website, a DB9 comes in at between £128,150 - £138,150. Or, In other words.

22 songs.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

So how much of that money be going to those poor musicians she ripped off?
Keep fighting the good fight RIAA. =D

People have to stop blaming the artists here. They make next to no money (like 12%-15%) off of music sales. Blame the labels.

In case you couldn't tell, that was a
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz95p7QWfu1qmfoslo1_500.gif

Doesn't read like a joke :S That's the problem with written jokes, no tone.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

The judgment amount is not calculated by considering what each piece of music is worth you quackwads. It's considering total revenue lost because file sharing those songs*, plus court costs, attorney's fees and something like "punitive damages" which are purely meant to deter future wrongful behavior by making the punishment disproportionate to the actual damage because in many cases the actual damage is very small.

*Back to file sharing. So the defendant shares one song (valued at $1). 100 people download that song from defendant (valued at $100). To keep the math simple we'll say each of those people uploaded the song to 100 other people for a total of 10,000 uploads (valued at $10,000). This keeps going on to the extent the plaintiff can prove it, and it happens for each song. The potential revenue lost grows alarmingly. The damages calculated in these cases consider revenue lost because of the actions of the defendant. In the example above, the defendant is liable up to $10,101.00.

"Quackwads" is that a new swear word for the PC crowd?

Anyways we know how this amount was calculated. No need to rage out and go into preach mode. But you can't seriously defend someone getting hit with a $220 000 USD bill.

And the "lost revenue" calculation argument is still BS. If it was about lost revenue they should sue her for what she stole, not what EVERYONE stole.

That's like giving a guy 45 years in jail because he stole a bike from Wal-Mart and the thief is doing to for every bike ever stolen from that Wal-Mart.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

So how much of that money be going to those poor musicians she ripped off?
Keep fighting the good fight RIAA. =D

People have to stop blaming the artists here. They make next to no money (like 12%-15%) off of music sales. Blame the labels.

In case you couldn't tell, that was a
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz95p7QWfu1qmfoslo1_500.gif

Doesn't read like a joke :S That's the problem with written jokes, no tone.

I wanted to see if any would catch that, and feel right into my trap! >)

You trap people with poorly written jokes? What am I a prisoner to unfunny comments now?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

So how much of that money be going to those poor musicians she ripped off?
Keep fighting the good fight RIAA. =D

People have to stop blaming the artists here. They make next to no money (like 12%-15%) off of music sales. Blame the labels.

In case you couldn't tell, that was a
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz95p7QWfu1qmfoslo1_500.gif

Doesn't read like a joke :S That's the problem with written jokes, no tone.

I wanted to see if any would catch that, and feel right into my trap! >)

You trap people with poorly written jokes? What am I a prisoner to unfunny comments now?

There's a reason the Master is my avatar!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Master had better things than bad jokes to trap people with. You should be Prime Minister by now.

 

[Flames66]

That is completely ridiculous. Piracy is not theft, what they are trying to do is.

 

[Jorec]

How exactly do they determine the value of a song? Do they just go by production costs for each song? Seems unlikely if each song is costing them roughly 9k each. I mean some songs have to be more or less expensive than that.

Unless they're just arbitrarily assigning a stupidly high number for each song because they can. And twirling their Snidely Whiplash mustaches the whole time.

 

[MatParker116]

This is why I'm grateful there's a cap on this here in blighty

 

[mattttherman3]

Wait a second, did she download these songs or host them for filesharing?

 

[Entitled]

Wait a second, did she download these songs or host them for filesharing?

You seem to be confused about how filesharing works: The two are the same.

 

[snekadid]

People don't get sued anymore for downloading music, you people are lost in time. She was being sued for SHARING those songs or rather hosting them so they could be downloaded by others. Of course the amount is ridiculous, ask any person with a masters in any math or social science field that isn't on RIAA payroll will tell you the whole formula is complete gibberish and without redeeming value.

This is what you get when you live in a system where only the rich are allowed to make laws and bribery is sanctioned under the law. Doesn't matter if it makes the country itself weaker over all or ruins lives, as long as the rich get richer. It still annoys me when people talk as if America was a Democracy and what happens is the "will of the people", its not, its the will of Goldman slipping some senators 50k to go their way.

 

[GAunderrated]

I'll just leave this here:

This is a great picture, thank you.It is easy to see who are the real criminals or to be more accurate extortionists.

I find it funny that digitally filesharing 24 song would cost 220,000 in damages but if I went into best buy right now and stole the same exact songs and go caught, the damages would only be around 5,000 at most (i've worked there in the past and seen this exact case).

So the lesson here kids is if you want to break the law and get the lesser punishment, its best to physically go steal stuff. RIAA making the world more stupid one suit at a time.

 

[dangoball]

Oh, heavens, how glad em I for some of the laws in my country. Did you know that in Czech republic you can download any audio/video from piratebay and the such completely guilt free? I'm serious! It's just that we pay a small tax for every 1GB of storage space that goes to US labels. Meh.

And juts to stay on topic:
Completely agree that 220k is a bit too much and also completely agree that refusing to pay 4.5k is stupid, especially when you have family to feed and risk much, much higher fee in the long run.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

RIAA are greedy bastards, to be sure, but they aren't idiots.

It's not a per-copy she downloaded fine, it's a per-copy she seeded fine. She only shared 24 songs, but she probably shared each one way more than once.

The sharing part is what they're after.

They are still assholes, but dividing the total fine out per single is confusing the issue.

 

[Entitled]

What's the issue? Person broke law. Person punished under law.

If you think it's a dumb law, you seek to have it thrown out, you don't just ignore it and break the law anyway.

Except if you are trying to do civil disobedience.